🦉 Watching owls 🌙 Staying up late 🐑 Wool smuggling

owling

9.9

Illegally taking wool or sheep out of England in the past

noun

Archaic

: contrabando de lana

Laws were enacted to prevent owling and protect the English wool trade from illegal export.

Examples

In the seventeenth century, owling was considered a serious offense by the English authorities.
Historical records show that many were prosecuted for owling during the medieval period.
In the 18th century, owling was a serious crime in England.
Many farmers were punished for owling their sheep.
In the seventeenth century, owling was seen as a way to undermine the wool industry in England.
A significant number of smugglers were arrested for owling to evade taxes on wool exports.
The authorities took strict measures against owling to safeguard the nation's valuable wool supply.

Synonyms

smuggling

vsowling

NSFW

76 4.5

To bring banned goods into or out of a country without paying taxes

is specifically about past export of wool or sheep from England

illegal smuggling

vsowling

NSFW

2 3.8

Taking goods or people across a border in secret and against the law

is limited to past export of wool or sheep from England not general transport

Surface Forms

owling singular

owlings plural

Morphology

owling = owl (opaque) = owl + ing

Although the word is historically linked to nocturnal owl imagery, the specialized sense of wool or sheep smuggling is not predictable from the base meaning for an ordinary learner.

Etymology

Owling once named the illegal moving of wool out of England, a kind of 'smuggling', because smugglers worked at night like owls. That night-time image explains why old records use owling for secret wool export, a meaning you now find mostly in history.